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The US president's preaching about human rights in a nation he wants to undermine have never sounded as hollow as when he speaks about the 'oppressed' Muslims of China. Just ask any Muslim-majority country bombed by the US.

By Caitlin Johnstone, an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

kamala

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has derided the president's move to appoint Vice-President Kamala Harris as the leading administration official to oversee the crisis at the southern border as the “worst possible choice” Joe Biden could have made.

“At no point in her career has [Harris] given any indication that she considers the border a problem or a serious threat. If President Biden's intent was to show that he's taking this issue seriously […] he's really done the exact opposite,” Ducey, a Republican, asserted on Wednesday.

Normandie

Émile Wenz is barely 21 when he begins his journey from Reims to Australia, in 1884.

samantha

Anyone who has spent enough time in Washington or has even a cursory familiarity with the professional functionaries who staff the foreign policy and national security apparatus here will have encountered, at one time or another, well-intentioned, seemingly humble, painfully earnest bureaucrats who are certain that the rest of the world needs, indeed cries out for, “American leadership.”

by James W. Carden

jake

dicky

After yet another explosive report by the ABC’s Four Corners on Monday night, accompanied by a sordid tale from Network 10 of male Coalition staffers getting their jollies on the desks of female MPs, Scott Morrison staged a media confessional on Tuesday morning in an attempt to change the narrative.

What narrative?

jen

NATO chief: Melting Arctic ice could heat up geopolitics

With China and Russia expanding their military presence in the Arctic, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told DW melting ice could increase geopolitical tensions and show the "security impacts of climate change."

"The melting of the ice in the Arctic could lead to the heating up of geopolitical tensions between different powers in the world," Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told DW’s Alexandra von Nahmen in an exclusive interview ahead of an in-person meeting of NATO foreign ministers.  

scomo...

Holding a press conference inside Parliament House, the Prime Minister defended himself against criticism stemming from his justification for his response to the Brittany Higgins rape allegation and how his wife had told him to imagine it was his daughter.

"Criticise me if you like for speaking about my daughters, but they are the centre of my life. My wife is the centre of my life," he said.

But he also angrily rejected questions from journalists suggesting he may have lost control over the ministerial staff.

no entry...

Biden team searches for new ways to slow border surge

The administration is sending sterner warnings to would-be migrants and devising alternate pathways for legal entry. But it’s unclear whether it will be enough.

By Sean Sullivan and Seung Min Kim

Read more at the WaPo...

glasshouse

In attacking the moral character of Russia’s president and China’s human rights record, the Biden administration opened the door for a critical examination of America's own troubled history.

By Scott Ritter

transhumanism

Our universe exists through the relative integrity of substances, that are mostly transforming from hot to cold while expanding in the space/time field.

voyage

I buy books by the kilogram and some people give me theirs. I have had this book for a while but had not really gone into it for being too busy... (my excuse for being lazy)... The dedication at top: To all Esq., with the author's kind regards signed: Emile Wenz fils.

This was my introduction to a quiet family that has had some unsung influences on the way things are... Let's start with Paul Wenz, Émile's brother...

musing...

Peta’s musings (above) in the Sunday Telegraph (21/3/2021) ring hollow… She was in charge of keeping the most misogynist Prime Minister of Australia ever, on the throne: Tony Abbott. Her pedigree is rightwing and that’s it. For her, anything left of Genghis Khan is a commie plot of weeds. 

giles

In late February last year, Rebekah Giles, one of Australia’s rising stars of the law, threw a party at Reign, the champagne parlour and bar in Sydney’s landmark Queen Victoria Building.

The occasion celebrated the launch of her boutique law firm, Company (Giles). Author Kathy Lette formally opened the evening as corks popped and toasts were made to Giles, who has overcome extraordinary personal odds, to join the top ranks of the nation’s legal fraternity.

hiding

The organisers of Monday’s women’s rally outside Parliament House have hit back at a Liberal MP’s claim that Prime Minister Scott Morrison couldn’t attend the march because of security issues.

On Saturday Liberal MP Jason Falinski told the ABC that Scott Morrison couldn’t hoin the March 4 Justice for security reasons.

“He is the Prime Minister of the country and there are security issues around those sorts of issues, about him going into big crowds,” Mr Falinski said.